Cops and courts: $1,000 snatched from tobacco store

December 19, 2006

By Sharna Johnson: CNJ Staff

Police are reviewing video footage of a hooded man who may have stolen more than $1,000 from the safe of a Clovis tobacco store around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, according to police reports.
A clerk at KC Express on West Seventh Street called police to report the robbery. She said she heard an ice bucket fall while she was taking out the trash and saw a man running from the store, the report said.
The suspect walked directly to the safe, opened it, removed a money bag containing the cash and bumped an ice bucket as he was leaving, causing it to fall, the report said.
The officer gathered a list of people who have knowledge of the safe’s location. The case is under investigation.

A Clovis woman told police a man took more than $600 that fell from her purse while at a restaurant register Dec. 13 and refused to return it, police reports said.
The 64-year-old woman said she was paying for her lunch at Furr’s Cafeteria the day before when the money fell on the counter. The man in line behind her put his hand over the money, snatched it and left when she told him to take his hand off her money, the report said.
Police interviewed the cashier who said she didn’t remember the incident because she would have intervened if she had witnessed it. She told police the man is a regular customer who comes in about once a week, the report said.
The case is active pending identification of the suspect.